S20 Crusader BEST Speed Farming Builds 2.6.8

Welcome, nephalem! To our best speedfarming builds guide for Crusaders in Diablo 3. To all the old school saders out there, rejoice as thorns pony is no longer king – Valor 6 Fist of Heavens (or Heavens Fury) is thankfully a “normal” build we can use!

This is the first pass for all classes speedfarming guide updates:Expect more detailed info soon! Alternate builds!

Crusader Speed Build Template: Valor Fist of Heavens

Here’s the basic setup and rerolls for some the First of Heavens / Valor set speed build. Please note that Heaven’s Fury is also super viable (more suited for higher end GR’s) but a lot worse for “easier content”, due to build quality of life issues.

Build – Items, Skills, Cube & Gems

The legendary gem situation is weird, and there’s lots of build options here and there: keep in mind that this is purely a base template to follow.

Crusader Valor 6 Fist of Heavens Speed Farming Build Details

Slot

Item

Skill

Rune

Weapon

Flail of the Charge

OPEN!

OPEN!

Offhand

Shield of the Steed

Fist of the Heavens

Divine Well (Fissure)

Head

Aegis of Valor

Steed Charge

Endurance (Any)

Shoulders

Aegis of Valor

Laws of Justice

Immovable Object

Chest

Aegis of Valor

Akarat’s Champion

Prophet

Hands

Aegis of Valor

Iron Skin (Open)

Steel Skin (Flash)

Legs

Captain Crimson’s

Passives

Boots

Aegis of Valor

Heavenly Strength

Finery

Bracer

Nemesis Bracer

Holy Cause

Indestructible (Open)

Belt

Captain Crimson’s

Kanais Cube

Amulet

The Flavor of Time (Open)

Darklight

Ring

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac (Open)

Khassett’s Cord of Righteousness

Ring

Unity

Ring of Royal Grandeur

Legendary Gem

Bane of the Powerful

Bane of the Trapped (Open)

Gogok Of Swiftness (Open)

Build – Rerolls and Stat Priority

There are “basic” rerolls. Obviously high paragon or other niche objectives can cause to warp this, but this is a good template.

Crusader Valor 6 Fist of Heavens Speed Farming Build Rerolls

Weapon

High Damage

STR

DMG%

CDR

VIT

Any

Shield

CHC

Fist%

STR

ANY!

VIT

CDR

Head

STR

CHC

Fist%

VIT

Res

Any

Shoulders

STR

VIT

RES

Life%

CDR

RCR

Chest

STR

VIT

RES

Life%

–

–

Hands

STR

CHC

CHD

VIT

CDR

RCR

Legs

STR

VIT

RES

Armor

Any

–

Boots

STR

Fist%

VIT

RES

MS%

Armor

Bracer

Ele%

STR

CHC

VIT

Res

LpH

Belt

STR

VIT

RES

Life%

Any

–

Amulet

Ele%

CHC

CHD

STR

CDR

RCR

Ring

CHC

STR

CHD

CDR

RCR

Any

Ring (ORotZ)

CHC

CDR

RCR

AS

STR

CHD

Keep in mind the above build and rerolls (best used as a template) are for a “standard balanced” speedfarming setup without taking it to the “extreme”.

Build General Notes & Options

I’ll be adding more of these notes and evolutions soon – I just want to finish the first pass for all classes first. – BRGMahiko

Fist of the Heavens + Valor feels great for farming, but it isn’t as “prebuilt” as other builds. Be aware of evolutions you MUST take to cover weakpoints in your build “right now”. You need tons of stats to really push to higher torments with this build safely. Don’t be afraid to start from TXIV and go from there. Defense and damage can be an issue but once you hit certain breakpoints it becomes super good.

Equipment Notes

This build has a ton of options here and there, but I’ll try to focus on the big important ones.

Even if you can use any weapon + shield pair. I felt that Flail of the Charge and Shield of the Steed was best. The only CRITICAL item is Darklight – wether cubed or equipped. I chose the crusader weapon set for speed and additional power. Feel free to experiment.

Amulet can be anything, really. Hellfire and Flavor of time are OK. Squirts if you don’t care about the added risk of death for increased speed (Nephs come to mind, but I doubt if this is going to work out well).

Unless you’re geared to the teeth defense is quite important. This is why I chose Unity as a recommended ring. While both the Unity and Zodiac aren’t integral to the build, there’s not much else you can put in there.

Justice Lantern is a solid option, but make sure you run up your block rate as high as you can. This is an overlooked item these days, but it can do work in niche scenarios.

Cube Notes

In this specific setup, the three cubes are locked. If you choose to equip the Darklight instead, then you have a free weapon slot which is likely for The Furnace, or Messerschmidts Reaver.

Sage Set (Deaths Breath Farming)? Cain?

It’s a 1 for 1 trade for Captain Crimsons to Sage (or other similar sets). Just don’t expect to roll over the same content with and without Sage equipped – you’re going to want to lower difficulty (around TXIV is the sweetspot for a non-hyperpowered DB farming build).

Skill Notes

There are many open slots here. In fact I’d say you only NEED two skills – Fist of the Heavens and Steed Charge. Nothing else is mandatory.

Of course every Crusader needs a law. I chose a defensive law, in Laws of Justice – Immovable Object, just to help with survival a bit. I didn’t feel I needed any of the Laws of Valor bonuses but it’s an option if you need more DPS.

Akarat’s Champion doesn’t have 100% uptime unless you reroll A LOT OF CDR. in the typical neph – I simply use it as a burst DPS or survivability cooldown. The weird truth is that in simpler content keeping it up with zodiac simply isn’t consistent since you might spend most of your time walking instead of hitting. You’ll need lots of CDR and tougher enemies to pull off a high uptime – not something you’ll see often in speedfarming scenarios.

Passive Notes

Finery, Heavenly Strength (or Fervor), are locked in. Holy Cause gives both damage and godly self-healing that I would consider it a lock too.

That leaves one open passive slot – get creative! Hold Your Ground is especially spicy with Justice Lantern. There aren’t many other passives aside from this, Indestructible or other minor defensive options here and there. Long Arm of the Law?

Stats and Reroll Notes

Any build running Crimsons can get a little dicey with rerolls (since RCR and CDR actually have more impact), I feel there’s noting too confusing about the gear rolls here. Piling on the CDR is an option so you get to use Akarat’s Champion a lot more. This is the primary “tryhard evolution” of this build.

A single Life per Hit would be nice somewhere (Bracer?). I would hesitate to get Life per Wrath spent as they only appear on crusader weapons and crusader shields – those reroll slots are important and powerful.

Legendary Gem Notes

Here’s where it gets weird. Powerful is your best speedfarming gem, period. Trapped is difficult to trigger but I suppose it works when you need it (Against elites, Rift Guardians… triggered by you being upfront or via your Templar). I would probably never unsocket Powerful or Trapped.

The third gem is a toss-up. Gogok is fine just to help with your cooldowns a bit. You can get cute with things like Zeis, or defensive with Esoteric. Personally it’s this kind of situation where Avarice + Hoarder would shine (as you don’t really NEED all the ring slots).

This is just the first pass on our speedfarming guide updates!Look forward to more in-depth information soon!

I thank the heavens for the Fist of the Heavens Valor speedfarming build. Its the only “normal” build that performs super well and I would categorize it firmly as the best crusader speedfarming build. Historically saders had to deal with thorns pony – I don’t miss this at all. More recently Akkhan Condemn or Shield Throw wasn’t that bad, I suppose.

15 COMMENTS

Just wanted to say awesome guide. Started playing D3 again after 8 years about a week ago. I made this build and I’m loving it. Hit a wall just above GR100. But the build is insanely easy to play and fun.

Which follower would you recommend for pushing further in the GRs. Templer or Enchantress?

It’s a huge source of CDR which is quite important for our build. You can ditch it if you find other means to get 100% uptime on champion. It may seem strange to see it on a build like this at all, but that’s cause we cant use Fervor with Flail of the Charge. Socket in a Diamond on it.

Interesting guide. Two questions came shortly to my mind. If we can use “any” weapon in the cube, why not double bombardment impact (-> Trove Belt + Skillbar)? Second if the amulet slot is free, why not use Akkhan amulet and free a slot for the chest that converts vit into thorns for dmg boost?